“Haykakan Zhamanak” wonders if the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) will be sponsored, in the run-up to the April 2017 parliamentary elections, by its former leader Gagik Tsarukian or Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian. “After the February [2015] drama, Tsarukian has been totally controllable for Serzh Sarkisian, something which cannot be said about Hovik Abrahamian,” writes the paper. It speculates that should Tsarukian really return to active politics he will help Sarkisian to “neutralize a political rival” such as Abrahamian. “With the help of Tsarukian, Sarkisian already neutralized Levon Ter-Petrosian ahead of the 2012 parliamentary elections,” it says. “The same could happen to Hovik Abrahamian ahead of the 2017 elections.”

“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” is highly skeptical about the newly appointed Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian’s pledge to build a “nation-army,” saying that the idea runs counter to the very nature of the ruling regime. “Right from the beginning the authorities are setting an objective for Armenia which is not feasible,” says the paper. “First of all, because the idea of nation-army presupposes a military discipline. In any army, a person’s liberties are limited by law. And secondly, the ‘everything for the army’ slogan would allow them to constantly tell the population to tighten the belts and to spend public funds with practically no public oversight.”

“Zhoghovurd” reacts to President Sarkisian’s Thursday remark that Prime Minister Karen Karapetian’s government “can do what all previous governments did not manage to do.” “It is not clear what Serzh Sarkisian’s belief is based on,” comments the paper. “As you may recall, he believed in the author of ‘second-generation’ and even ‘third-generation’ reforms, Tigran Sarkisian, and then Hovik Abrahamian … in the same fashion. Now it turns out that those governments did not succeed in their endeavors.”

“Zhamanak” reports that Artur Baghdasarian’s Armenian Revival Party has decided to back Krist Marukian, the candidate of another opposition party, Bright Armenia, for the post of mayor of Vanadzor. The paper believes that Marukian’s election as Vanadzor mayor as a result of a power-sharing deal with Armenian Revival and the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) could set an important precedent and end widespread popular apathy in the country. “On one hand, this will greatly increase the responsibility born by these and other political forces,” it says. “On the other hand, it will raise the prospect of their being competitive and viable.”